


Homeward bound for the arctic ground

by BirchWrites



Series: Antarctic Princes 'verse [2]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Dadza, Gen, because come on it's tommy, road trip au but like no one is having a good time, some language, the sleepy bois are a family, very mild descriptions of injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27493468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BirchWrites/pseuds/BirchWrites
Summary: Instead of sending a message to Techno asking him to help Pogtopia, Wilbur and Tommy decide to fetch him in person.
Relationships: Dave | Technoblade & TommyInnit & Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Series: Antarctic Princes 'verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2016563
Comments: 34
Kudos: 1056





	Homeward bound for the arctic ground

**Author's Note:**

> Two things:  
> 1) No this is not how the canon timeline went, but it's my canon now and I do what I want  
> 2) For the purposes of this story, the Antarctic Empire is not located at the literal south pole; it's just way down south and very cold

If you had asked Tommy this morning where he thought he would be when the election was over, his first guess would have been “at a party, listening to Wilbur give a dramatic speech about the history of L’Manberg that heavily emphasized his own role in events,” or maybe “competing with Tubbo to see who could eat the most cake at their celebration dinner.” If he had been in a particularly uncertain mood when you asked him - not that he was ever uncertain about the outcome, but if hypothetically he had been - his guess might have been more along the lines of “faking a polite smile at someone _else_ ’s celebratory speech and pretending not to notice Wilbur blatantly planning a second revolution at the dinner table.” 

But no matter what kind of mood he was in when you asked him, his list of predictions would not have included “stumbling through a pitch-dark forest with a bleeding Wilbur slumped against him, evading hunters who he had considered allies less than an hour ago.” Somehow, that scenario had never occurred to him; and yet, here he is. 

With a grunt of effort, Tommy repositions Wilbur’s arm over his shoulder where it had started to slip. His older brother is nearly dead weight at this point, and while Tommy’s no weakling, he also is absolutely not built for lugging an entire adult man’s weight around while trying not to trip and fall on his face in the dark. They’re not going anywhere fast like this, and they’re not especially quiet either; most likely, Tubbo’s invisibility potions combined with the lack of light are the only reason they haven’t been caught yet. 

_Bless_ Tubbo and his completely overkill preparations, Tommy thinks, and the thought sends a pang through his chest. The last time he’d seen his best friend, the other boy was standing pale and shaking on the stage as Schlatt slung a companionable arm around his shoulders and ordered him to _show them the door_. And Tommy had just _left_ him there and run off like a coward, too scared and confused to come up with a better plan. 

“Tommy.” Wilbur’s voice, low and strained from pain, interrupts his train of thought. “Tommy, you need to take a break.” 

“It’s fine, I can keep going. We need to get somewhere safe.”

“Like where? There’s nowhere we can reach any time soon, and if you collapse now we’re both fucked, because I can’t fight like this.” Wilbur jerks his head at his injured sword arm, which Tommy had hastily bandaged with cloth torn from his uniform coat. 

“Like -” Tommy trails off. While he hates to admit it, Wilbur’s right; between Schlatt on one side and Dream’s lands on the other, they’re days away from anywhere that he’d feel comfortable resting long enough for Wilbur’s arm to heal. “Well, what do you suggest we do, then? Just lay down and give up?”

“You know that’s not what I meant. Just - sit _down_ for a moment, alright? We haven’t heard anyone in a while, we’ll be fine for a few minutes.” 

Tommy strains his ears, but he can’t hear anything other than their own heaving breaths and the sound of the wind through the branches. For now, it sounds like they really are alone. 

He absolutely does not let out a groan of relief as he lowers Wilbur carefully to the ground before sitting down himself, because he’s made of tougher stuff than that, but it is nice to have the weight off his shoulders for a moment.

It’s too dark to see anything useful, but Tommy grabs his brother’s arm anyway, inspecting it as if he’ll be able to somehow fix it without any potions or even basic medical supplies. The bandage looks like it’s holding, at least, but he doesn’t like how quickly it’s turning dark with blood. 

“So, what’s the plan?” he asks, partly in an attempt to distract himself and partly because a childish part of him really, really wants someone else to tell him what to do right now.

Wilbur cards his free hand through his hair and shakes his head, the motion somewhere between disbelief and despair. “I don’t know.”

“What do you _mean_ you don’t know? You always have a plan!”

“I mean I _don’t know_!” Wilbur snaps, sharply enough to make Tommy jump. “I wasn’t exactly expecting this to happen!” 

“Well, we need to do _something_. We overthrew one tyrant, we can do it again, right?” Tommy says with a confidence he doesn’t quite feel. 

Wilbur huffs out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, but last time we had help. Resources. It’s just us this time, Tommy, and I don’t think a few music discs are going to be enough to get Schlatt off our backs.” 

“We’re not completely on our own,” Tommy says. “What about Tubbo, and Niki?” 

“Niki’s stuck in L’Manberg, and you heard what Schlatt said about Tubbo. His ‘right hand man.’ Contacting him would be as good as turning ourselves in.” 

“That’s not fair. He didn’t ask for that position,” Tommy protests. Tubbo can’t have betrayed them; he’d looked like he was about to faint right off the stage when Schlatt called him up. He’d looked scared, and angry, and unless his friend has suddenly become a much better actor than Tommy knew, he’d been caught completely off guard. That wasn’t the expression of someone collecting the rewards for selling out their friends. 

“Whether he asked for it or not, we can’t trust him. Even if he doesn’t mean to turn us in, Schlatt’s almost certainly going to be watching him like a hawk.” 

Which - Tommy really doesn’t want to admit that Wilbur has a point because it’s _Tubbo_ , his best friend, practically his third brother, but … Wilbur might have a point. If - _when_ \- they contact Tubbo, they’ll need to be smart about it.

“Alright, then what about …” He wracks his brain for another idea, then suddenly brightens up as one occurs to him. “Techno! We can ask Techno for help!”

Wilbur gives him an incredulous look. “Techno, really?” 

“Yeah, really! With him on our side, those traitors would think twice about coming after us again,” Tommy says excitedly. 

“You really think he’d leave the Empire for this?”

 _Of course he will, he’s our brother_ , Tommy wants to say, but then again, Techno hadn’t exactly cared about helping them with their last revolution no matter how dicey it got. Apparently he’d been busy fighting a war over potatoes, or possibly with potatoes; his last letter had been halfway incomprehensible, in the way Techno’s letters generally were when he hadn’t been getting enough sleep. 

Tommy knows that Techno would kill without hesitation to keep them safe, but he also knows that their brother’s priorities don’t always line up with theirs. Unless it’s directly threatening his family, Techno couldn’t care less about the world outside the Antarctic Empire’s borders; even during the worst of the revolution, his offers of help had mainly consisted of reminders that their rooms in the palace were always open if they wanted them (and the occasional reprimand to Tommy to remember his sword fighting lessons). 

Getting him to actually care about this new conflict - beyond maybe offering to stab Schlatt for hurting them - is going to be tricky, but Tommy has a genius plan. 

“There’s no way Techno will say no,” he says confidently.

“Really?” Wilbur’s skepticism is almost tangible. 

“Yeah, because we’re going to ask him in person.” 

-

The thing about Technoblade, ruler of the Antarctic Empire and one of the most feared fighters in the known world, is that he has a certain weakness. Not many people know about it; his position and his reputation tend to discourage the kind of casual interactions that would cause people to notice. But as Techno’s family, Tommy knows a lot of things about him that most people don’t, and as his younger brother, he’s legally obligated to take advantage of those things as often and as inconveniently as possible. 

Right now, the weakness Tommy is taking full advantage of is this: Techno _hates_ awkward social interactions. The man will take on hordes of mobs, leap into battle with any number of enemies, or even fight a dragon without hesitation, but put him in front of a crowd of people who are mildly disappointed in him and all of that fearless strength will immediately vanish. 

So the plan is simple. Tommy and Wilbur will travel down to the Empire, catch Techno in front of as many people as possible (preferably including Phil, whose disappointed dad face could stop a pillager raiding party in their tracks), bust out the puppy eyes, and peer pressure him into helping them get their city back. Simple and easy! 

Their most pressing concern, right now, is how they’re actually going to get there. The seat of the Antarctic Empire is far to the south and on the other side of an ocean, and that’s not even getting into how much of Dream’s kingdom they’ll have to pass through on the way there. 

When the war had ended and the dust had settled, Dream seemed content to leave L’Manberg and its residents alone as long as they kept to themselves, but Tommy and Wilbur had never pushed the limits of his tolerance by going wandering around in his land. Even if he would have allowed that before, Tommy is pretty sure all bets are off now that they’ve been exiled, and he certainly wouldn’t put it past the other ruler to engage in a bit of petty revenge if he catches them. Dream has never been the type to take a loss easily, after all. 

So the first thing Tommy and Wilbur do is abandon their uniform coats and hats, the most recognizable signs of their identity. It’s not a perfect solution; their clothes still don’t look quite normal, and this close to L’Manberg there’s a high probability that they’ll be recognized even without the uniform, but Wilbur argues that nobody is going to look at the pair of them - bloody and disheveled from their flight - and immediately make the connection to L’Manberg’s former leaders. 

“If anything, we might need to be more worried about getting mistaken for a pair of hobos and chased off,” Wilbur jokes while Tommy helps him maneuver his injured arm out of his jacket sleeve.

“So nothing you’re not used to already,” Tommy replies, and then snickers at the affronted look on his brother’s face. 

“I can’t believe - I’m injured, you’re supposed to be _nice_ to me, Tommy.” 

“Maybe I would if you weren’t such a bitch boy.” That earns him another affronted noise, which he ignores completely.

For a moment, Tommy considers trying to hide their uniform pieces; it almost feels wrong to just leave them on the ground somewhere, after wearing them for so long. But they’re in a hurry, and it’s unlikely that they’ll manage to find this place again, so in the end he just kind of shoves them under a bush and calls it good. 

Now that they’ve rested a little, Wilbur is somewhat steadier on his feet, even managing a few steps on his own, but Tommy still doesn’t like how he starts swaying in place whenever he stops moving. He doesn’t know if it’s blood loss or pain or exhaustion or _what_ ; Tommy’s about the furthest thing there is from a doctor or a cleric, and the only thing he can really do is make sure Wilbur doesn’t fall down and pray the arrow that hit him hadn’t been poisoned.

They can’t go directly south from here without backtracking too close to L’Manberg for comfort, so they set out in a wide loop to the southeast instead. Between Tommy still having to support Wilbur and both of them tripping over unseen rocks and sticks every few steps, it’s slow going. It takes them the better part of an hour to find a road, and by then even Wilbur is tired enough of being smacked in the face by branches that he doesn’t give more than a token protest about leaving the protection of the trees. 

Tommy isn’t too worried about being spotted by anyone; the road is barely large enough to be worth the name, just a narrow strip of tamped-down dirt cutting through the trees without even enough space for a wagon to fit on it. He’d give it good odds that they won’t meet a single other person tonight. 

He’s half right, as it turns out. There’s no one else on the road, but after another hour or so the mass of trees around them thins out to reveal a tiny village perched on the edge of the forest. Tommy doesn’t recognize it, but that’s not especially surprising; he never spent much time traveling, and a village this small most likely had nothing to do with the rebellion. 

As he scans over the small collection of buildings, his eyes naturally catch on the tallest one - a small tower built out of rough cobblestone - and he almost collapses in relief. That’s unmistakably a church, and where there’s a church, there’s almost certainly a cleric.

“Wil, look!” Tommy elbows his brother to get his attention and points at the tower. “Let’s get the cleric to look at your arm!”

“No, absolutely not. We can’t risk it,” Wilbur says firmly, but his attempts to push Tommy in the opposite direction are foiled by the fact that he only has one good arm and can barely stand without wobbling. 

“Yes, we _can_. You’re half dead on your feet, Wil, and I’m not going to carry you all the way to the Antarctic Empire.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Wilbur insists, and then promptly almost eats shit on an uneven patch of road.

Tommy snorts and hauls him back onto his feet. “Yeah, clearly. Come on, we’re going to see the cleric and that’s final.”

Wilbur continues to protest - and Tommy continues to ignore him - all the way up until Tommy starts banging on the door of the church. At that point he switches to berating Tommy for potentially waking up half the village, but he’s quickly interrupted by a woman yanking open the door and fixing them both with a death glare.

“Somebody had better be dying,” she hisses, tone impressively fierce for how quiet her voice is. 

“Uh,” Wilbur says. “Sorry to bother you, ma’am -”

“He is,” Tommy interrupts. “Dying, I mean. Might bleed out any second, actually.”

“Well, no, I -” Wilbur tries again, only to cut off with a yelp as Tommy stomps on his foot.

“See? Look how much pain he’s in! He needs help right away.” 

The woman presses her lips together disapprovingly, but steps out of the doorway anyway, waving them inside. “Alright, come on. At least it’ll keep you from waking everyone up,” she adds in an irritable mutter.

She makes a detour around the open main room of the church to grab a lantern and light it before approaching the workstand that takes up most of the back wall. Now that the room is brighter, Tommy can see her yellow-trimmed purple cleric’s robe, thrown on haphazardly over what look like sleeping clothes. Normally, he would feel a little bit bad for waking her up so late, but normally Wilbur wouldn’t have gotten shot in the arm by one of their fellow revolutionaries, so Tommy thinks he’s actually completely justified here. 

“So, what happened to him?” The cleric’s tone is all business now, albeit still a little snippy around the edges.

“He got shot,” Tommy says. She gives him an expectant look and waves a hand as if to say _go on_ , but he doesn’t elaborate further. 

After a moment of silence, the cleric shakes her head and turns her attention to Wilbur. “Shot. I see.” 

She pushes Wilbur’s sleeve up out of the way and tuts disapprovingly at the makeshift bandages before cutting them away to prod at the wound. Tommy can’t quite make out what she’s doing, but judging by Wilbur’s sharp intakes of breath, it doesn’t feel great. It doesn’t last long, however; only a few minutes pass before she’s wrapping another bandage around the wound, this one made of clean white cloth and much more neatly tied than Tommy’s hasty job from earlier. 

“You’ll live,” she announces, and shoves a small glass bottle of pink liquid into Wilbur’s hand. “Drink this and try not to move it too much for the next few days. Beds are in the back room over there.”

“What?” Tommy asks, confused by the apparent non sequitur. 

“Are you deaf, kid? Beds. Over there.” The cleric jerks a thumb over her shoulder. “What, did you think I’d just kick the two of you back out into the night? I have _some_ professional pride, thank you.”

Tommy gears up to tell her exactly what he thinks of her professionalism, but before he can Wilbur sets down the now-empty bottle and says brightly, “Much appreciated, thank you. How much do we owe you?”

“Psh.” She waves a hand dismissively at them and turns away. “Just don’t drag me into whatever trouble the two of you are involved with and we’ll call it even.” 

With that, she blows out her lantern and sweeps out of the room, leaving Tommy and Wilbur alone in the dark. 

“Well,” Wilbur says.

Tommy points a threatening finger at him. “If you’re about to suggest that we leave anyway and go sleep in the woods somewhere, I’m going to punch you.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Wilbur says, mostly convincingly. 

“Great. Let’s go, then.”

Tommy leads the way to the back room the cleric had pointed out, which turns out to be a cramped space with a few narrow beds tucked in between precarious stacks of chests and barrels that take up the majority of the room. 

“I wonder what’s in these,” Tommy says, reaching for a chest that looks less likely than the others to fall over the moment he touches it.

Wilbur knocks his hand away and fixes him with a disapproving look. “Tommy, you’re not going to steal from the nice cleric who just healed my arm for free. Stop it.”

“I think ‘nice’ might be pushing it a little.” 

“Tommy.”

He sighs. “ _Fine._ ”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“I’m not going to steal from the nice cleric who healed your arm,” Tommy parrots dutifully, rolling his eyes as he does. 

“ _Thank_ you.” Wilbur makes a beeline for the bed closest to the door and collapses on top of the blankets with a groan, not even bothering to take his boots off first. “Fuck, I’m exhausted.”

He’s out like a light a few seconds later. It’s not the first time Tommy has seen this kind of effect with someone who’s recently taken a healing potion; condensing weeks of healing into a matter of days takes a lot out of a body, even if they haven’t spent the last couple hours trekking through the wilderness in the middle of the night like Wilbur has. 

Now that Wilbur’s asleep, Tommy halfheartedly considers going through the chests anyway, just out of spite. But to be honest, he’s almost as exhausted as his brother, and it’s all he can do to kick off his boots and crawl under the blankets before he’s asleep as well. 

-

He’s woken the next morning by Wilbur shaking his shoulder, looking bleary-eyed but much better than he did the night before. Judging by the light coming through the room’s small window, it’s only a little past sunrise. Tommy grumbles unhappily and tries to duck his head back under the blankets, keeping his eyes determinedly closed. Wilbur responds by trying to yank the blankets away, resulting in a brief but fierce tug-of-war that ends with Tommy tumbling off the bed to land hard on the floor. 

“What the _fuck_ ,” he says. “Remind me why I saved your life again?”

Wilbur drops his end of the blankets on Tommy’s head, hiding his glare. “Because you love me. Come on, we need to keep moving.”

“I don’t, actually. I’m disowning you,” Tommy informs him as he detangles himself from the blankets and dumps them in a heap on the bed. “I only have one brother now.” 

Making a dramatically wounded noise, Wilbur clutches a hand against his chest and falls back against the doorframe like he’s been shot. “I can’t believe you’d do this to me, Tommy. My own little brother, betraying me!”

“I’m _not_ your little brother now, that’s the whole point. I’ve decided we’re not related anymore.”

“Well, in that case, I guess you don’t want any of the breakfast I found. It’s for family members only.”

Tommy squints at him. “Where did you find breakfast? I thought you were against stealing.” 

“I _am_ against stealing, Tommy, especially from our very intimidating host. I bought this, thank you very much.”

“You have money? Why?” That’s news to Tommy; there hadn’t exactly been time to grab supplies during their rush out of L’Manberg, and he didn’t think either of them brought much with them to the election. What was the point? It was supposed to be a peaceful evening, and their home was only a few minutes away if they ended up needing something.

“Tubbo left some in the chest with the other supplies. It’s not much, but it should buy us enough supplies to get down to the coast.” 

Tommy huffs out a surprised laugh. “Of course he did. Do you think anyone’s ever told him he’s a little paranoid?”

“It’s not paranoia if you’re right,” Wilbur says bitterly. Then he holds out a small packet of something sweet smelling. “Here, come on. Eat while we walk. I don’t want to hang around here any longer than we need to.”

The packet, when Tommy opens it, turns out to contain some kind of apple pastry. It’s sweet and flaky and still a little warm, and he devours it in a few quick bites on their way out of the church. He hadn’t even noticed how hungry he was until he’d eaten, but now he really wants a second one. Wilbur’s got his single-minded focus face on as he hunts for somewhere to buy supplies, though, so Tommy rates his chances of detouring for another treat as slim to none unless he knocks his brother out and runs to the bakery while he’s unconscious. 

It doesn’t take them long to figure out that the village has a general store of sorts. It’s not large enough to sell anything especially useful, but they get some food that will keep well while they travel and a couple of bags to store it in. Tommy gets firmly ordered not to say _anything_ unless it’s an emergency while his brother haggles with the shopkeep, because Wilbur “would like to be able to buy something before we get kicked out of the store, _Tommy_.” 

Which is completely unfair. Tommy’s only been kicked out of a store _once_ for being rude to the owner. Well, maybe twice. And then there was that other time … Okay, maybe it happens a little more often than it should, but that doesn’t mean Wilbur has to go and be rude about it. 

Still, they get their supplies eventually and set out, following the road southeast out of town. Wilbur is almost back to moving normally again, although it’s clear that his arm is still bothering him; every so often he’ll make a gesture or reach for something, only to wince and pull his arm sharply back to his side. 

He’s also incredibly touchy, swinging back and forth between joking like he normally does and staring moodily into the distance as they walk, punctuated by outbursts of temper that Tommy would usually only expect from himself. It’s almost impossible to guess what’s going to set him off, so after the third argument in as many miles - started when Tommy made a comment about the weather that apparently echoed a joke Fundy used to make - Tommy gives up entirely on trying to speak to Wilbur for a while.

The next few days of travel pass in much the same way - long stretches of nothing punctuated by the occasional village, hours marked out by arguments and fragile attempts at jokes and the constant thump of their boots against the dirt. Their nights are spent sleeping in shifts in whatever sheltered place they can find near the road, because Wilbur flatly refuses to interact with any villagers even to buy a room at an inn, and it’s almost like the very earliest days of the rebellion - when it was just the two of them against the world, full of fire and determination and an almost ecstatic disbelief at their own daring to challenge someone like Dream. 

Tommy never thought he would be saying it, but he misses those nights, misses watching the firelight flicker in Wilbur’s eyes as he spoke about the future they were going to make and sketched grand designs in the air with his hands until Tommy could almost see them himself. The Wilbur he followed then almost seems like a different person entirely than the one he dragged away from the election, who distrusts everyone in sight and speaks bitterly of traitors and revenge more often than he speaks of future plans. Even during the worst of the revolution, Tommy never saw Wilbur like this. Tommy isn’t scared of anything, least of all his own brother, but … it does worry him, just a little. 

He tries not to think about it.

As their path winds further south, the number of people on the road gradually starts to increase, and the villages they pass through get larger and larger. L’Manberg is in the middle of nowhere, compared to most of Dream’s kingdom; it’s why Tommy and Wilbur decided to build it there, reasoning that Dream wouldn’t miss such an insignificant, out-of-the-way place when he had the entire rest of the kingdom (boy, were they wrong about that one). But now they’re getting back into the more populated part of the kingdom, and Wilbur is getting twitchier and twitchier with every traveler that greets them on the road. 

His fear isn’t entirely unreasonable, to be fair; they have no idea what Schlatt is planning now, whether he’ll be content to see them run off with their tails between their legs or whether he’s sending someone to hunt them down, and Dream’s lack of fondness for L’Manberg’s founders has almost certainly been passed down to any members of his guard they might run into. Looking at it that way, anyone they meet has a bigger chance of being an enemy than a friend.

But Wilbur is also, to put it politely, a paranoid fucking bastard. He always has been, really, and this whole situation has only made it about a hundred times worse. Every time they encounter someone, he looks like he’s expecting to get knifed or arrested or both, and it’s starting to earn them a few weird looks. 

Tommy is a caring little brother (and also tired of the weird looks they’re getting), so he _acquires_ some winter clothes in the next town they pass through - sweaters and coats for both of them, and a soft knitted hat for Wilbur that will hopefully hide his appearance enough for him to calm down a little. Maybe getting them the way he did wasn’t _entirely_ legal, but it saved their rapidly diminishing supply of emeralds and also they fought a whole war about how Dream’s laws shouldn’t apply to them, so Tommy is pretty sure he’s in the right here, actually.

Wilbur isn’t impressed with Tommy’s brilliant scheme when he finds out about it, and complains at length about how that was “an incredibly risky move, Tommy” and “we literally can’t afford to get arrested right now, you _moron_.” In return, Tommy points out that Wilbur is the one who’s been going on and on about how they also can’t afford to be recognized, and anyway they’ll need the warmer clothes eventually if they don’t want to freeze during the long boat ride to the Empire. 

(This is true, but even the warmest clothes he’d been able to find are still made for the comparatively mild winters of Dream’s kingdom, which are more or less equivalent to late spring in the Antarctic Empire.) 

Wilbur accepts that as an excuse, even though he knows as well as Tommy that one sweater and a thin coat over their summer uniforms will be about as effective as a candle in keeping them warm if the weather turns bad as it has been known to do even this early in the fall, and lets the argument drop. He does seem much more comfortable passing through crowds all bundled up, chin tucked into his collar and hat pulled down low over his forehead, so Tommy counts it as a win. 

-

The first time Tommy realizes he can smell the sharp tang of salt on the breeze, it courses through him like a speed potion, and he takes off running to the top of the hill the road has been slowly winding up. From there, he can see the ocean spread out below him, glittering like a deep blue jewel in the late morning sun and filling up the landscape as far as he can see. Between his hill and the water, he can see the messy tangle of buildings that makes up the largest port city on this side of the kingdom, the same one he and Wilbur landed in when they first arrived years ago. It looks just the same as it did then, any changes hidden by the distance and his high vantage point.

Wilbur catches up to Tommy a few moments later, stopping just behind his shoulder to look out over the view as well. Apparently he’s in a good mood today, because from the corner of his eye Tommy sees his mouth twitch up into a small smile. 

“It’s been a while,” he says, and Tommy nods.

He wonders if Wilbur is also picturing the two of them when they first came ashore, years younger and much more naive, at once excited and frightened to be so far from the Empire for the first time since they’d been adopted into the family of the man who would become its ruler. He doesn’t ask, doesn’t want to shatter the unexpected peace of the moment by bringing up the past.

Instead, he says, “Phil is going to _murder_ us for not visiting earlier.” 

Wilbur’s expression flips from nostalgic to horrified so quickly that Tommy nearly strains something trying not to laugh. “Oh, gods, _Phil_. I didn’t even think of that. Tommy, we need to turn back now. We can’t do this.”

“Don’t be such a bitch,” Tommy says, although now that he’s thinking about it he would rather duel Dream again than face their adopted father’s _I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed_ lecture. Still, show no weakness, and all that. “We’re going, and that’s final.”

“Easy for _you_ to say! You’re not the one he’s going to blame here and you know it!” Wilbur shifts on his feet, as if he’s honestly considering fleeing back in the direction of L’Manberg.

Tommy shrugs. “Not my fault you never told me to come visit. I’m young and impressionable, so I only do what people tell me to.”

“That - that is the biggest lie I’ve heard in my _life_.” 

“It absolutely is not.”

Wilbur’s smile falls away, eyes going a little distant. Ah, shit. “No. It isn’t, is it?”

That’s absolutely not what Tommy was going for; the whole point of the conversation had been to get Wilbur to _stop_ being moody about L’Manberg for like five minutes. Tommy gets it, he really does - it was his home too, his friends and allies that turned on them - but Wilbur is a fucking _pain_ to travel with when he’s like this and Tommy would like to get through one day without accidentally starting a pointless argument. He prefers to start his pointless arguments on _purpose_ , thank you.

“Anyway!” he says brightly, nudging Wilbur’s shoulder. “Let’s go find us a ship, yeah?”

That works, thankfully. Wilbur blinks, like he’s just been woken up unexpectedly from a daydream, and nods. “Yes, let’s. The sooner we get to the Empire and back, the better.” 

Wilbur sets a quick pace down the hill and toward the city, sometimes moving fast enough to force Tommy into a half-jog to avoid getting left behind. He doesn’t slow down until they hit the city gates, and then only because the crowd of people moving in and out makes it impossible to move at more than a light walk. People bump past them more than once, and Tommy ends up having to snag Wilbur’s sleeve just to make sure no one shoves between them in an attempt to get through a little faster.

There are a pair of guards idling in the shadow of the gate, green and white uniforms standing out brightly against the dull grey stone brick, but they’re apparently there more to keep an eye on things than actually stop anyone from coming through. Wilbur tenses a little when he spots them, forcing Tommy to pull him along by his jacket sleeve so he doesn’t hold up traffic, but neither of the guards so much as glances at them, and they pass through into the city without issue. 

Once free of the bottleneck formed by the gate, the crowd thins out a little, and Wilbur immediately takes advantage of it to fall back into his earlier pace. He makes a beeline down the main road to the harbor, weaving through the crowd with Tommy tagging along behind and doing his best not to lose sight of his brother when people cut in between them.

The harbor is extremely loud and smells of salt and fish, mixed in with a dozen types of cheap food from the stalls set up to serve the incoming sailors. It’s a chaotic combination, almost overwhelming but not necessarily bad. 

There are a decent number of boats docked today, rocking gently on the calm water. Some stand empty, while others look like kicked anthills, crawling with workers scurrying around to move cargo or complete repairs. But even with this many options, finding a ship is a task easier said than done. Tubbo’s stash of emeralds got them this far, but after having to buy food and supplies along the way they barely have enough left for a night at an inn, let alone passage all the way to the Antarctic Empire.

Best case scenario, they’ll be able to find a ship belonging to someone from the Empire; Tommy didn’t do it often when he and Wilbur still lived there, because it feels kind of like cheating, but flashing the signet rings that mark them as members of the ruling family would get them out of port faster than he could say _Technoblade_. Being related to one of the most intimidating people in the Antarctic Empire has its benefits, sometimes. 

Worst case scenario, they’ll have to stow away somehow. Tommy has absolutely no moral opposition to that, but he also doesn’t want to get caught and dumped overboard to freeze to death in the middle of the ocean, so he’ll call that Plan B for now. 

Tommy raises a hand to shield his eyes against the bright sky while he examines their options, but doesn’t spot anything of interest until Wilbur elbows him, somewhat harder than strictly necessary.

“Look, Tommy! Right there, that’s our ticket out of here.” 

Tommy follows the point of his finger to a small ship about midway down the docks, and brightens as well when he spots a familiar blue and white flag above its sails. “What are we waiting for? Let’s _go!_ ” 

He bounds off in the direction of the ship, darting around dock workers and sailors, occasionally tossing an apology over his shoulder when he narrowly avoids knocking into someone carrying something heavy. 

Wilbur catches up to him just before he reaches it, and drags Tommy back with a firm hand on his shoulder. “Alright, hang on. Let _me_ do the talking, Tommy.”

Tommy rolls his eyes and shrugs out from under Wilbur’s hand. “Gods, chill out. I can get through one conversation without getting us tossed in the brig or whatever you think will happen, Wilbur.” 

“Let’s just not test it, alright?” Without waiting for an answer, Wilbur sweeps up the plank bridging the ship to the dock, his long brown coat flaring behind him with the movement.

This ship is one of the busy ones, its crew hurrying this way and that to complete tasks that Tommy couldn’t tell you the purpose of if you held him at swordpoint but that look important. Wilbur doesn’t even blink at the controlled chaos of it all, just pastes on his best politician’s smile and strolls over to the nearest person who doesn’t look like they’ll drop something heavy on his head if he interrupts them. 

“Excuse me, could you direct me to whoever’s in charge here?”

The sailor he’s addressing looks up from his work to squint at Wilbur, then at Tommy standing just behind him, as if he’s not sure whether he should kick them off the ship or not. But all he does is gesture vaguely to his right and say, “Yeah, Captain Jones is in her cabin. Dunno if she’ll have time to speak, though.”

“It won’t take long,” Wilbur assures him, and gestures for Tommy to follow him in the direction the sailor had indicated. 

Captain Jones turns out to be a redheaded woman in well-made but practical clothes. She’s standing up at her desk, frowning down at a map in a way that looks more thoughtful than annoyed, and startles slightly when Wilbur knocks on the frame of her open cabin door.

“I _told_ you, just get Dan to -,” she looks up at the two of them and cuts herself off. “Oh, you’re not - sorry, it’s been hectic. Can I help you with something?”

“Are you Captain Jones?” Wilbur asks, still smiling that smarmy politician’s smile of his. 

“That’s me. Listen, can we hurry this up? We’re casting off in an hour and there’s lots of work still to be done.” 

“Right, of course. I’ll get to the point, then: my brother and I need to get to Antarctica as quickly as possible, and we were hoping you could help us.”

Jones tilts her head slightly, her earlier frown making a reappearance. “Well, we are heading that way, but we’re not a passenger ship; we’re already full up on cargo as it is.”

“I understand that, but this is _extremely_ important,” Wilbur says, his smile starting to go a little strained at the edges. “Surely you could make one exception?”

“If I made one for you, I’d have to make one for everyone. I’m sorry, you both seem like nice boys, but -”

Tommy’s had quite enough of this. He shoulders past Wilbur through the doorway, avoids his brother’s attempt to grab his arm with the ease of long practice, and places one hand on Jones’ map to lean over her desk. With his other hand, he fishes the chain he never takes off out from under the collar of his sweater and raises it enough that the ring dangling from it is visible.

“Let’s try that again,” he says brightly. “My name’s Tommy Innit, that’s my brother Wilbur Soot, and we would _really_ appreciate it if you let us hitch a ride on your ship because our _other_ brother is expecting us in Antarctica _very soon_.” That last part is absolutely not true, but a random sea captain should have no way of knowing that, and it might be enough to get them there a little faster.

Jones’ eyes have gone wide, and she stares at the ring for a long moment before dragging her gaze back up to Tommy’s face. “Well, I ... suppose I could make an exception, just this once. Just make sure you’re back here in an hour if there’s anything you need to do before we cast off.”

“ _Thank_ you, Captain,” Tommy says. 

“We do have emeralds,” Wilbur adds belatedly from where he’s still standing in the doorway. “If that helps.”

Judging by Jones’ expression, it really doesn’t.

-

“I can’t take you anywhere,” Wilbur says later, when they’re both tucked into an out-of-the-way corner of the deck. Since neither of them know the first thing about sailing, they’ve been politely but firmly told to sit down and not touch anything while the crew works to direct the ship out of the harbor. 

“Oh, come on,” Tommy scoffs. “You were going to do the exact same thing, I just decided to speed up the process a little.”

“I was _not!_ At what point did I give you the impression that the plan was to _threaten_ our way onto the ship?”

Tommy gives Wilbur a look like he’s got a couple of screws loose, because clearly he does. “Uh, when you pointed at a ship with Techno’s flag on it and said ‘look, that’s our ticket home?’”

“I meant because they would probably be heading in the right direction!” Wilbur runs a hand through his bangs in agitation, almost dislodging his beanie in the process. “Tommy, what part of ‘keeping a low profile’ is too difficult for you to understand?”

“Hey, I’m incredibly discrete. Name one thing I’ve done on this trip to draw attention to us.” 

Wilbur opens and closes his mouth a couple times, looking for all the world like a particularly stressed out fish, before settling on, “I literally don’t even know where to begin.”

“Yeah, because there’s nowhere _to_ begin,” Tommy says smugly. 

“The _point is_ , you can’t just keep doing stupid things like this, Tommy. Just - please think about the consequences for once in your life!”

“I am thinking about the consequences. The consequences are, we have a ship now, and we didn’t even have to pay anything for it.”

“And what if she’d said no anyway? We’d be stuck here until the next ship came along, and if anyone overheard you doing that, half the city would know where we were by sundown.”

“So what? It’s not illegal for us to be here.” 

“This is Dream’s land; _illegal_ means whatever he says it does, and I really would rather not rely on the off chance that he might be in a friendly mood for once and won’t have us both arrested just to be a dick, because - just in case you forgot, Tommy - Schlatt’s very first move after exiling us was to send someone to _hunt us down_. How do you think that would work out, if he caught up while we couldn’t run away?” 

“Gods,” Tommy groans, letting his head fall back to thump against the wooden railing behind him. “Are you seriously still on your whole ‘Tubbo’s a traitor’ schtick? Because I’m telling you, there’s no fucking way. Not Tubbo.” 

“I want to believe that. Really, I do,” Wilbur says, and there’s something just off enough about his sincerity to set Tommy’s teeth on edge. “But you don’t know Schlatt like I do. Even if he has the best intentions, Tubbo is no match for him.” 

“You’re wrong,” Tommy says flatly. Sure, Tubbo might look sweet and mild, especially when everyone is used to seeing him in comparison with Tommy, who is decidedly _not_. But Tommy knows his best friend, knows that there’s a spine of fucking steel under that cheery marshmallow fluff exterior. Schlatt might be powerful and cunning, but he’d have better luck convincing the sun to stop rising than he would convincing Tubbo to betray them. 

“Tommy,” Wilbur sighs, tone dripping with sickly sweet sympathy, and Tommy’s had enough.

He shoots to his feet, grabbing onto the railing for balance when the ship’s swaying throws him off more than he expected. “Wow, that looks interesting,” he deadpans, not bothering to pretend to actually be looking at anything. “I’m going to go see what he’s doing over there. Don’t follow me.”

With that, he stalks off to the far side of the ship as gracefully as he can while still in the process of getting his sea legs, pretending he doesn’t feel Wilbur’s disappointed gaze burning into his back as he goes. 

-

Tommy hadn’t expected to miss the endless walking, but it turns out the ocean is worse. There’s nothing to look at other than water, birds, and the occasional chunks of floating ice that start to appear as they make their way southward, and while the ship is by no means tiny, it’s still enough of a confined space that Tommy is slowly but steadily going completely stir crazy.

He spends most of his time bothering the sailors to teach him various tasks around the ship, which has the double benefit of giving him something to do with his hands and providing an excuse to talk to Wilbur as little as possible to avoid another argument. As a distraction, it works pretty well; in the time it takes them to spot land, he learns five new types of knots, the fastest way to scrub a deck, a couple new card games, and enough interesting swear words to entertain him for a month. 

There’s still a lot more sitting still than Tommy likes, though, especially at night. He’s had trouble sleeping for - well, years, really; unless he’s completely exhausted, it’s extremely rare for him to go an entire night without waking up from bad dreams. He’d never regret following Wilbur into the war for L’Manberg, but it did provide him enough nightmare fuel to last for the rest of his life, and this whole situation with Schlatt and the election has not helped with that at all. 

It’s not that the nightmares _scare_ him or anything stupid like that; they’re just dreams, and Tommy is braver than that. But waking up in the middle of the night is annoying, and he doesn’t want to deal with it. So he spends a lot of nights like this: outside, watching the stars and trying his hardest not to slip into a comfortable position that might cause him to doze off. The cold bite of the Antarctic Ocean air helps somewhat. Even with a borrowed cloak from one of the crew members wrapped over his jacket like a blanket, he’s shivering a little, and he can feel his fingers going slowly numb where they’re clutching at the edge of the cloak.

That’s fine. Everything about this situation is fine, actually. Tommy’s never been better. 

A soft tap of boots catches his attention, drawing his eyes down from the stars to the dark figure that’s just appeared from the door leading below. They look around for a moment before they notice him curled up at the base of the mast and cross the deck with quick strides, long coat flaring behind them.

They crouch down in front of him. This close, Tommy can make out Wilbur’s concerned features, washed to a pale silver by the moonlight. “What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?” 

Tommy shrugs. “Stargazing. Couldn’t sleep; you know how it is.”

Wilbur nods, because he does. For all the nightmare-inducing scenarios Tommy has been through in the past couple of years, his brother has been beside him for every one, and probably has a few extra of his own to boot. Wilbur has seen him wake up shouting from more bad dreams than Tommy can count, and Tommy has seen him startle awake from plenty as well.

“What are _you_ doing out here, Wil?” Tommy asks, when Wilbur doesn’t say anything else.

“I woke up and you were gone, and it freaked me out a little.”

Tommy drops his gaze to his knees, sheepish. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be. You didn’t do anything wrong.” 

After a moment’s consideration, Tommy lifts up one side of his borrowed cloak. “Want to sit with me for a bit? You can see lots of stars from here.”

Even in the dim light, he can make out the way Wilbur’s concerned frown softens out at the offer before he twists around to wiggle under the cloak. It takes a bit of shifting around and plenty of elbowing from both sides, but eventually they manage to get comfortable with Wilbur leaning against Tommy’s side, one arm around Tommy’s shoulders and the other holding the edge of the cloak so it doesn’t slip down. 

“Where did you get this?” Wilbur asks once he’s settled.

“One of the crew lent it to me. He thought I looked cold, apparently.” The end of Tommy’s sentence is swallowed in a yawn, and he snuggles down a little further, letting his head fall against Wilbur’s chest.

With the extra body heat, it’s much warmer under the cloak, and Tommy finds his eyes drifting closed without his permission. He doesn’t want to sleep yet, doesn’t think he’s gotten tired enough to avoid the nightmares, but … maybe it’ll be alright if he rests his eyes a little. Just for a second or two.

He falls asleep before he can hear Wilbur’s response, if there is one, and he doesn’t dream.

-

It’s a relatively mild day when they hit land, as far as days in the Antarctic Empire go. Tommy can’t even see his own breath in the air as he stands on the docks with his hands in his pockets, rocking idly on his heels. They’re still two days’ walk away from the capital, but Captain Jones had offered them a ride on one of the wagons that would bring her ship’s cargo up to the city - score another point for using Techno’s name to intimidate people, Tommy thinks - so he and Wilbur are waiting around on the dock instead of taking advantage of the remaining daylight hours to cover as much ground as they can.

A trade caravan won’t honestly be much faster than just walking, but it will be a lot easier on their feet, so Tommy had pestered Wilbur until he accepted the offer. It hadn’t taken much effort, really; his brother seems to have calmed down considerably about the prospect of being around other people now that they’re back in familiar territory. The knowledge that anyone harming them will bring a royally pissed Technoblade (and Philza, which is almost scarier in Tommy’s personal opinion) down on their heads is a hell of a confidence booster, apparently.

The head of the caravan must have been briefed on who he was transporting at some point, because the first thing he does after greeting them is apologize for the less-than-luxurious conditions. Tommy can’t help but snort at that, because he’s spent the better part of the last few weeks sleeping on the ground and even when he’d lived in the palace full-time he honestly couldn’t give less of a fuck about all that propriety stuff. 

It’s funny, but also a little bit embarrassing to deal with, so Tommy leaves Wilbur to do the necessary _yes, this is really fine_ and _no, we’re not going to tell our scary brother on you if the seats don’t have cushions, honest_ routine and goes to see if any of the horses are friendly enough to pet. 

Being back in Antarctica is weirder than he expected. There’s so many things about it that he hadn’t realized he’d forgotten but are now hitting him with the full force of childhood nostalgia: the crisp smell of the cold air, the way the sun glints off drifts of snow on all but the hottest summer days, the people bustling around in their brightly colored coats and cloaks made to stand out against the dull grayscale of their surroundings.

Tommy spends most of the ride to the capital bouncing in his seat as he watches his surroundings, occasionally taking breaks to climb down and walk alongside the wagons when he wants to stretch his legs or find someone else to talk to. There’s a lot to look at, considering they’re on one of the main roads running through this part of the Empire, and compared to the boredom of the days they spent at sea the time seems to fly. 

The capital first comes into view midway through the second day, the high domed roof of the palace easily visible above the other buildings even from this distance. When he spots it, Tommy lets out an excited shout and smacks Wilbur’s arm several times in quick succession, earning a stifled wince from his brother. Oops; probably should have checked whether he was on the injured side or not. The arrow wound had healed cleanly with the help of the cleric’s potions, but that arm seems to still be a little sore sometimes, especially when, say, getting hit by an overexcited little brother. 

“Sorry,” he mutters, then quickly continues, “Look! There it is!”

“Yes, thank you, Tommy. It’s good to know you don’t need glasses.” Wilbur is doing his best to sound annoyed, but Tommy can hear the undercurrent of excitement in his tone. 

They part ways with the caravan soon after they reach the city proper, since the traders are headed to the opposite side of the city from the palace. The two of them are sent off with waves and cheerful well wishes; after the slightly rocky start from the caravan leader’s nerves, all of them had gotten along well enough, since Wilbur charms people like it’s his one job in life and Tommy is obviously a delight to have around at all occasions. 

After several years of being away, Tommy couldn’t have given anyone directions to the palace if his life depended on it. But apparently his feet remember what his mind doesn’t, because he doesn’t even have to think about it as he falls into step with Wilbur. They make no wrong turns as they hurry through the city, and it feels like he’s hardly blinked before they’re standing in the main square, looking up at the entrance to the palace.

It’s an imposing facade, easily three times as tall as any of the surrounding buildings and built to be defensible against any army. To Tommy’s mind, it’s always just been home. But now, staring at the familiar gates, he thinks he feels for the first time a sense of the intimidation visitors must get when they approach. Because for all that he’d joked about it with Wilbur earlier, he is genuinely worried about how Techno and Philza will react. It’s not like he and Wilbur cut all contact when they went to Dream’s lands - they’d sent letters home fairly frequently, actually, even during the war - but it’s been a long time since they actually visited in person, and now they’re only here because they want something. He has to admit, it’s not a good look for them.

“Shall we?” Wilbur asks from beside him. There’s nothing in his voice to suggest whether he has the same worries, whether he was thinking anything at all as he looked at the palace or if he just stopped because Tommy did.

Tommy takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders. He is not scared. He is Tommy Innit, who fought a war and dueled a tyrant and won their freedom with his negotiating skills, and he is not scared of a little thing like seeing his family for the first time in at least two years.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

One of the guards at the entrance initially tries to step in their path when he sees them coming, only to quickly change the motion into a bow when he catches sight of their faces. “Welcome back, your Highnesses,” he says. Turning to the other guard at the gate, he orders, “Find the Emperor and Lord Philza at once and inform them that the Princes have returned.”

The other guard snaps off a salute in response, dips a quick bow to Tommy and Wilbur, and takes off into the keep at a pace just shy of a sprint. The two of them follow more slowly, and Tommy resolutely pretends he can’t see guards and servants alike elbow each other and exclaim in poorly hushed disbelief as they pass. There was practically no need to send a guard to fetch Techno and Philza; with the palace’s rumor mill working full-force, the information will have spread to everyone in the building in a matter of minutes. 

Sure enough, they’ve barely stepped into the throne room before one of the other doors slams open and Philza bursts through. He pauses for a second when he sees them, disbelief and joy warring across his face. Then Tommy lifts his hand in an uncertain wave, and Philza comes all but flying across the room to drag them both into a hug. His big, dark wings unfurl from their resting spot under his cloak to fold around them, hiding the three of them from sight. For a moment, Tommy feels just like a little kid again, wrapped up in warmth and love and absolutely convinced that there is no safer place in the world than under Philza’s wings. 

“Oh, my boys,” Philza says, gripping onto them like he expects them to vanish the moment he lets go. His voice is choked, but he’s beaming as he speaks. “Welcome home, sons.” 

“Hey, move over, I want to see too,” a second voice scolds, and Philza’s wings withdraw from the shell they’d been forming, allowing Tommy to catch sight of Techno over his adopted father’s shoulder. 

They must have caught him in the middle of training, because he’s dressed in a plain shirt and pants instead of his usual court attire, and there are strands of loose hair forming a messy pink halo around his head where they’ve fallen out of his ponytail. Despite that, he doesn’t look the slightest bit annoyed; he’s grinning as hard as Philza is, like neither of them are angry at all about how long it’s been.

Techno nudges Philza, and after one more tight squeeze he reluctantly steps away, allowing Techno in close enough to ruffle Tommy’s hair and clap Wilbur on the shoulder. 

“Finally remembered we exist, huh?” Techno’s tone is more fond than accusatory, but Tommy has to stifle a guilty flinch anyway.

Judging by the way Wilbur’s eyes flick away to study the lanterns burning along the opposite wall, he’s having similar thoughts. “It’s been - absolutely hectic, Techno, I’m sorry.”

Techno’s jokingly annoyed expression softens. “Hey, don’t worry about it; I’m just messing with you. It’s great to see you both.”

“How long are you staying?” Philza chimes in. “I know you’re busy with L’Manberg, but you’re welcome here as long as you like.”

“We can’t stay long, I’m afraid; things have … _really_ gone south in L’Manberg, and I’m sure they’re only getting worse with every minute we’re gone,” Wilbur says. 

Philza’s smile immediately drops into a concerned frown, but it’s Techno who speaks first. “What’re you doing all the way down here, then, if the situation’s so urgent?”

Here it is: the moment they ran from L’Manberg for, the reason they’re an ocean away from the home they should be fighting to take back. Tommy takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders.

“Techno, we need your help.”

-

“...So, to sum up the situation, the two of you tried to rig an election, failed, _lost_ the election, and got kicked out. And now you want me to help overthrow the rightfully elected government so Wilbur can have his presidency back,” Techno says.

The four of them have relocated to the sitting room in the family apartments after Philza insisted, saying that this wasn’t a discussion to have in the middle of the throne room where anybody could walk by and hear them. Tommy claimed his favorite armchair, the one closest to the fire, and is now sprawled out in it with his legs hooked over one arm and his head resting on the other, while Techno is sitting much more properly in the other chair, leaving Wibur and Philza to share the couch.

“He was not _rightfully elected_ ,” Wilbur snaps. “He pooled his votes with Quackity’s party without telling anybody - that’s _cheating_.” 

“Hey, no need to get worked up.” Techno holds his hands up in a gesture of peace. “You had me at ‘overthrow the government,’ Wil. ” 

Tommy raises his hand. “Aren’t you also a government, Techno?”

“That’s different.”

“How is it different?”

“Well, I’m me, and they’re not.”

“Techno, are you sure this is a good idea?” Philza interrupts before they can keep getting off track. “The Empire-”

“Will be fine for a little while. I trust you, Phil; you’ll probably keep this place running better than I can.”

Philza pulls a face. For all that he’s integral to the running of the Empire as Techno’s right hand, he has absolutely no interest in actually ruling it and always seems mildly uncomfortable on the infrequent occasions he has to temporarily take over for his middle son. “Okay, but what about when you actually get over there? It sounds like their whole political situation is pretty tenuous already, and I doubt it’s going to get any better when Dream hears that _Technoblade_ is running around on his land.”

Tommy shoots up in his seat indignantly, grabbing onto the back of his chair with one hand for balance. “Hey! It’s not Dream’s land anymore, it’s _ours_. He doesn’t get any fucking say in who we bring back to L’Manberg.” 

“Yes, but I’m not sure he’ll see it that way,” Philza says reasonably. “Do you want to risk starting a fight over it?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t mind a rematch,” Techno says, and grins with all his teeth the way he only does when he’s making threats. 

It takes a significant amount of effort for Tommy not to immediately become distracted with plots to _coincidentally_ get Dream and Techno in the same place once they’ve headed back towards L’Manberg, because while their last fight had been one of the single coolest things he’s ever seen, they really don’t have time to be goofing off like that. Like Wilbur said, the longer they wait, the worse the situation will get.

Philza snorts and rolls his eyes fondly in response to Techno’s posturing. “Alright, I don’t know why I expected anything else. Should I get started preparing to integrate another kingdom into the Empire while you’re gone, then?”

Instead of continuing the joke, Techno fixes Philza with a serious look, and Tommy knows he’s noticed the implicit approval in that statement as well. “Be honest with me, Phil. Do you really think this is a bad idea?”

Philza sighs deeply and closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them again to return Techno’s gaze. “No. I think it definitely has the potential to go wrong, but I always worry about that whenever you - any of you boys - are out of my sight. If you think you can handle it, then I trust you. Go help your brothers.” 

Techno nods, and turns back to the other two. “Alright. Tommy, Wilbur - I’m in.”

**Author's Note:**

> Would you believe that this was initially meant to be 1500 words tops? I got carried away just a little bit


End file.
